Jim Taylor is Code4000’s Programmes Director and has been working with the GRC throughout their project.
First of all, I’d just like to clarify that throughout this article I’m not seeking to typecast every person who is in prison or has been in prison. Nor am I suggesting that prisoners or former prisoners are some homogenous mass or hive mind who all think and behave in the same way. For the purpose of this article, I wanted to explore one specific mindset that I’ve encountered amongst people in prison, especially amongst young people, and look at how that mindset can be effectively challenged.
One of the earliest conversations around criminal justice I can ever recall having was as a teenager in the nineties. My brother, who was studying politics at the time, suggested that young people will always seek status within their peer groups and, where that status could not be attained through typical, pro-social metrics such as academic or sporting success, those young people would look to other methods. He argued that this was one of the factors that, at the time, was contributing to the “joyriding” trend of car thefts. Against a backdrop of unemployment and deprivation, young people who felt excluded from broader society, would signal their worth, their status, by stealing cars and showing off their driving skills.
This was an idea that always stuck with me, and one that would be later borne out while working at Wetherby Young Offenders’ Institution. I was in a meeting with someone who worked in a Secure Training Centre (or STC, a custodial setting for younger children, one rung down the ladder from young offenders’ institutions) who talked about young people earning their “Wetherby Stripes”. Essentially, what she was saying was that, to many in her cohort, being sent to Wetherby after a spell in an STC was a sign of status amongst their peers, a graduation, if you like, from one stage in the criminal justice system to the next. Similarly, a lot of the lads at Wetherby were keen to move on from juvenile to adult prisons for the same reasons. It’s worth pointing out that for most of the young people at Wetherby, in their own minds at least, a “real” graduation, such as one from university, would seem a no more realistic experience than a trip to the moon. Perhaps therein lies the real problem.
I’m not trying to diminish or trivialise the experience of being incarcerated, I’m not naïve to the impact of prison on young people. I’m equally not trying to deny the more complex and deep-rooted causes and drivers of crime, quite the opposite. The behaviour I am describing is a symptom, it is what inevitably happens when entire communities are disenfranchised and excluded from the opportunities and rewards of our society. Nevertheless, the reality is that many of those lads at Wetherby saw themselves as criminals, identified as such, and saw their criminality as a career path. My brother had a point, where there is a vacuum of security and sense of place and purpose, those experiencing that vacuum will fill it with their own yardsticks for status and respect.
So, as we reach our eighth stage of the Hero’s Journey, the Refusal of the Return, we find ourselves at a crossroads. How do people, often institutionalised by their experiences prior to and during the criminal justice system, reject that baggage? How do we effect that shift of mindset? Provide that alternative view of self and status that those in prison, or who have left prison, can pick up and run with?
Code4000 are all about offering alternatives. From the moment students join our course they are offered a different take on prison life. Our academies are light, open plan spaces where “prison talk” is left at the door. We encourage experienced students to mentor new students and to deliver teaching sessions, taking responsibility for the progress of others and honing their own coding skills while so doing. There are stand-ups and regular discussions to plan work, learning, and support. While there is help available, students are expected to work independently and to manage their own time, as well as seek to solve themselves the inevitable coding problems that arise. In short, Code4000 academies are modelled on the tech sector workplaces we hope to one day see our students in.
And the workplace is ultimately what it is all about, working with our students to prepare them for work, both in terms of skills and building the confidence for them to say “I can be a developer”. From the start, we offer bespoke, tailored support to our students both while in prison and on release. We recognise that not all students need the same level of support in the same areas and our regional manager offers a package of academic and careers advice based on what is needed, not a one-size-fits-all plan. We scaffold support and use small steps to build confidence and self-esteem. We’re realistic, but aspirational for our students: not quite having all the skills a developer needs today does not mean that will be the case tomorrow.
Training is only one part of the puzzle of supporting prisoners and former prisoners to make the right choices; that training must be combined with an alternative to the identity, and therefore the life, our students had prior to joining the course. What is essential is a sense that the student can do something else, something different and more positive than what they have done before.
Amanul expresses some of the anxiety around making that leap from an old life to a new, different life:
“You’ve been to prison and knowing that nobody is giving you that opportunity, it kind of, it changes your mindset a little bit. It makes you think, oh, what if nobody gives me an opportunity and I have to go back to a life where it’s a life of crime. I don’t want that life, I want a career, I want to live a good life like I don’t want to live the kind of life where I’m always looking over my shoulder.”
And it is at this stage in the journey, the Refusal of the Return, where there is perhaps the greatest conflict of all. Where our students leave the Code4000 course with new choices, new opportunities, but might still be tempted by those familiar, previous experiences. One Code4000 student in his forties once told me that he found prison easy, an experience that was well within his comfort zone having been in and out of custody since he was a teenager. For him the challenge was not about skills or training, but about taking a step into an unfamiliar world. Do our newly trained coders reject their new found skills, their new identities as potential tech professionals, in favour of the comfortable embrace of the old? Or do they recognise that what is in their past does not necessarily define their future, and thus make the most of the opportunities that their new skills have granted them?
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